Judicial Review #1 - Organizing Workers

By the authority vested in my office per CoL.E.2.A and CoL.E.2.D, I hereby open this discussion thread for the purposes of clarifying a potential conflict in our laws. Specifically,

Hear ye! Hear ye!
The floor is open for discussion and debate on this issue. Citizens of Fanatika - this is your chance to be heard. Judicial Review is underway on this matter and we want to hear your opinions prior to making a ruling.

Keep in mind, however, that this is a court of law and will not tolerate any foolish behavior. Please keep your comments on topic and refrain from any and all derogatory remarks. Constructive debate is the key.

EDIT: Added CoL.D.1.E to the post.

I believe tile use means the actual assignment of population points to work certain tiles to maximize production, commerce or food output. The workers referred to under the President's duties are the ones who actually construct roads and such.

An excellent obervation Eyrei. CoL.D.1.D does refer more to usage of provincial tiles by laborers in the cities. I meant to include CoL.D.1.E which refers to tile development. I apologize for the error.

Let the deliberations continue...

As a note, this is not yet my official inpretation of the laws...

Octavian takes off his Public Defender hat

I am inclined to believe that these laws allow the President to figure out what national priorities for workers are, and also allows governors to use workers for what they see as best.

From an official sense, the dispute between the President's power to control workers vs. the Governor's power. The dispute between the two powers given by the CoL would be settled by the Chain of Command (Ref. CoL G.2). The President, being higher on the CoC, would overrule any sort of instruction from a governor.

Why then, Octavian, should we even have the governors go through the trouble of finding the trouble spots in their provinces if a simple CoC is all it takes to deny them the proper tile improvement? With that argument, not a single one of us would be able to run our positions without that threat.

If there is a dispute, it should go to an Administrative Council Vote, preferably in the Forums. Or even better, it should be worked out between the governor and President in the appropriate government threads. I do not believe it should be rushed through a Spot Council Vote(although well within the DP's rights) at the chats with one Dept Leader present. While that practice hasn't happened much in regards to worker actions, it has been used much to frequently to change build queues, IMO.

What we need is the development of Provincial and National Work Priority Lists. These will not only determine the urgent needs of the provinces and the nation as a whole, but they will also work as a checklist to ensure that "no tile gets left behind."

First, let me say that all members of the Judiciary should feel free to contribute to this discussion without fear that their comments may be construed as official or final. So please, don your Defender's cap once again Octavian, and keep contributing.

Having said that, I would like to propose an alternative to your initial interpretation. Could it not also be said that the rules place the responsibility of determining the specific tasks/improvements (ie. irrigation, mining, etc...) that are to be done within their provincial borders to the respective governors, but places the responsibility of prioritizing those tasks to the President's Office?

Donovan, your suggestion (in the second paragraph) would be great... If we had time to do such a thing. Unfortunately, we can't take the time to do an Administrative Council vote for *every* worker action. In this case, expedience is more important, otherwise, nothing would get done.
Besides, this is a *clear* Departmental Jurisdiction conflict, and in accordance with CoL.G.2, this is settled through the Chain of Command as Octavian noted. Cooperation between two departments would be nice, but the laws don't mandate it.

Interesting...

Does the Chain of Command's authority to resolve Departmental conflicts apply to conflicts between two branches of government as well?

Additionally, I think that whether or not there is, in fact, a "clear" conflict is part of what we are attempting to discover here.

@Veera - Yes, after reading what I wrote, I suppose you are right. My emphasis is on the fact that these things can be taken care of before the chat takes place. On the fly decisions and 1-0 Spot Votes in the chat this term are the main factors leading to the current aura of mistrust by some of the governors.

Well, I must admit, 1-0 spot votes are better than 0-0 spot votes ~_^ I still believe that the quorum noted in our Constitution should apply to Council *Spot* Votes as well as Council *Forum* Votes

The scope of this issue is not contained within the Code of Laws itself but extends to, and should begin with the constitution. Clauses in the CoL cannot conflict with nor over-ride constitutional principles. Without examing the constitutional power divisions between the president and the governors we cannot hope to clarify these sections of the Code of Laws.

Article D of our constitution (the only one that mentions the president) reads:

The Executive Branch is headed by the President, who shall be the designated player of the game, and shall include a council of leaders, each of whom heads a department that is responsible for one major facet of the country. These departments are Domestic, Foreign, Military, Science, Culture and Trade. Each of these departments will be generally responsible for the items found under the respective Advisor in the Civilization III game and esoteric aspects that fall under their department name.

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There is nothing what-so-ever said about workers or tile improvements or tile useage.

Article E of the contstitution (which outlines the responsibilites of governors) states:

The Legislative Branch will be formed of two houses. The Senate will be formed of the Provincial Governors, each of whom are responsible for the care, management and use of the cities and lands of a province in addition to legislative responsibilities. The Congress will be formed of the entirety of the citizenry.

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While this does not mention workers it is difficult to imagine how governors are to give care and management to their provincial lands without having a say in what workers inside the province are doing.

Historically, governors have been able to request worker actions in their province and have them carried out. CoL section D.1.E (quoted in the first post of this thread) specifically states that governors organize tile developement. Implied in this statement is a gubernatorial authority over workers.

C.1.G of the CoL, also quoted in the first post of this thread, states that the president organizes worker activities. This clause does not use the phrase *organizes decisions about workers* because that was intended to be the responsibility of the governors since they must organize tile developement. Since it is too difficult to map out actual worker movements ten turns in advance especially when we have over 50 workers it was decided that the DP (usually the president) is the one who should organize the logistics of how the tile developements called for by the governors are to be carried out. This is not the same as saying the president has authority to decide what tile improvements are to be made in the provinces.

EDIT: When I began writing this post Octavian's post was the last one up. By the time I posted there were many more posts! This is great. I do hope those who replied earlier will look at this in the constitutional light I've tried to place it in. The president is given no constitutional authority over workers or tile developements. There is no departmental conflict here and the chain of command clause does not apply.

Deleted. I confused myself...

My fear is a sort of hoarding of workers by governors. Wtihout the president's override of governor's worker actions, it would all to easy for a single governor to order each and every worker within Fanatika to his/her province. Allowing the president to also make worker decisions would allow national interests to be represented. Which is really more important to the nation: A mine for a small border town, or a national railway system?

Y'know, I believe official polls would override all of this... Poll on the Great Fanatikan Railroa, and end that particular problem, although this could cause the same time constraint problems I mentioned before.
Or maybe I'm wrong. I swear, the laws are very sketchy on Official Polls and how far their jurisdiction extends.

The facts are laid out here fairly clear, according to the three books. Governors are in charge of the care and development of their Provinces. Governors determine tile development (improvements of tiles) and tile usage (how the cities laborers are allocated in the city screen). The President organizes worker activities. In this discussion about possible conflicts, the resolution has already been presented to us, not only by the constitution and supporting books, but by the people who produced those documents.

The governor examines the Province and determines which areas need development in order to maximize the growth and production of his cities. (I use "his" in this writing in reference to me, I am not a sexist, nor was the Constitution written by redneck good ole boys, it was just an oversight.) He then notifies the DP (normally the President of the Provinces needs by manner of posting in the Turn Chat Instruction thread, and elsewhere in the forums in an appropriate manner. The DP should take these instructions as a prime directive when applying worker actions to a Province. That seems pretty straight forward to me.

As far as laborer allocations, tile optimization has been a part of this game since its inception. I can remember many times when I've read Chieftess utter the phrase "Don't forget tile optimization". You simply open up a city screen do a few mouse clicks on the available tiles untill you get your desired result. The Governor is the one who determines the use of the city tiles in his Province. There are two ways to lean in terms of a city's strength in regards of tile usage, growth or production. You can modify that by saying "I'd like max growth with as much production as possible" or maybe the opposite. But there are still only two main ways to go. It's not a difficult process. A Governor may also specify each and every tile to be used in a city screen by way of a narrative or picture. all three ways are common.

Sorry, but I haven't seen anything about overrides when it come to either law. I can see council votes applying to build queues, but that's a different discussion and doesn't apply here. The facts are the DP doesn't decide which tiles are to be improved in a Province (unless it has been predetermined as part of a National program, such as railroads or National Parks). They merely gfollow the instructions of the Governors in this regard. The same goes for laborer allocation on the city screens.

That solution is impossible, Cyc, because then all governors could ask for the same workers. The DP has to be the final authority on what the workers do, otherwise we have mass confusion.

I've yet to have the time to read through all the posts in this thread, but I think the power should split between the president and the govonors.

The president is incharge of the councils worker demands (IE: trade wants to have a road built to an other Civ). The govonor's hold control over the workers intill a poll is posted (by the president) to move a worker to do something else.

I just confused myself all over.... Give me a chance to clear my head and I'll explain it better.

Originally posted by eyrei
That solution is impossible, Cyc, because then all governors could ask for the same workers. The DP has to be the final authority on what the workers do, otherwise we have mass confusion.

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We have not had mass confusion in the past and implementing the already established constitutional division of powers via a judicial review will not lead to mass confusion in the future. The DP does not have to be the final authority on what workers do. Yes, there will be times when conflicts arise between a governor's tile improvement orders and an established national project. That is when a DP needs authority to decide. There will be times when two or more governors in the same area request more work be done than the nearby workers can handle. That is also a case when the DP needs authority to prioritize the tasks. The DP is given the authority in both these cases since the DP organizes worker activity.

The DP does not need authority to completely disregard tile improvements requested by governors. The DP certainly does not need authority to summarily over-ride such requests. Any changes to tile improvement that conflict with a governor's orders should be handled via the DP's administrative over-ride which is a vote. Of course the best way is for the two parties to try to work any conflicts out before reaching over-ride stage.

I do not see that upholding our already established practices will result in mass confusion. I think all our governors are aware that they can request tile improvements in their province. I don't foresee a flood of worker requests if the Judiciary rules that the DP cannot ignore governor's orders regarding tile improvement.

eyrei, you're looking at this with your eyes closed. I didn't say that the Governor had authority over what the Workers did first, I said they determined what tiles were to be worked first and which tiles laborers were to utilize. Of course what you're saying would cause confusion. That's why I'm not saying what you're thinking about. Read what I wrote. In one of the main problems we have in these PI's is that I, as Governor of The North province, repeatedly indicated to the president which tiles needed development first and why. She ignored these requests and developed different tiles as per her whim. Can't you see this? Even DZ's priority list has spelled this concept out to you.

Quoting donsig:
Any changes to tile improvement that conflict with a governor's orders should be handled via the DP's administrative over-ride which is a vote.
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Thanks for trying to help, donsig, but there is no lawful means for the DP to overide tile development through a council vote. At least not in the Constitution I'm looking at. If I'm wrong, please quote the passage.